


I Fall In Love Just A Little

by Star55



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: F/F, Girl Direction, The X Factor Era, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-20 22:31:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21289223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star55/pseuds/Star55
Summary: Niall is used to being ‘one of the boys’, and now she’s constantly surrounded by girls and she has no idea what to do with all of these feelings.
Relationships: Niall Horan/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	I Fall In Love Just A Little

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [Mar](https://larryscurves.tumblr.com) for the constant support and cheerleading. Words will never express just how much I love and adore you. ♥
> 
> Thank you to the Hozier fic title generator, too, for the tile. A+ work, whoever created that.

It’s quiet.

Well, it’s quiet _except_ for Niall strumming her guitar. But she’s sitting in what is usually one of the busiest rooms of this X Factor house – the lounge room. The communal area where everyone gathers at all times of the day and night.

Except right now.

The house is quiet. Except the slow strumming Niall is doing. She’s not trying to be loud, she’s trying to get her brain to quieten down enough so that she can finally get some sleep. 

It’s been hard. 

It’s been an absolute whirlwind of activity and she has barely had a moment to _breathe_ let alone think, and it’s been harder than she thought.

She’s suddenly sharing a room – a _single_ living space – with four other girls. And a house with more than twenty people. It’s a far cry from her small home in Mullingar, that’s for sure.

But it’s quiet, and if Niall thinks that maybe, just maybe, if she can play the right chords, her brain might quieten down, too.

Because being in a house with this many people – this many _girls_ especially, is making Niall re-evaluate her entire life. It’s a scary prospect, if she’s honest. She’s only sixteen, and she thought this had this whole life thing figured out already. The older housemates would laugh at her for that, she’s certain they would. But Niall has always known who she is. So having this _thing_ that she’s suddenly thinking about a whole lot more is throwing her whole world into utter chaos.

The thing is – is that Niall is seeing girls in a whole new light. Back in Ireland, she was friends with more boys than anything. Sure she had one or two friends that were girls when she was growing up, but everything got complicated when girls got their periods, and Niall didn’t get hers until she was fifteen, so she was already a bit of an outcast in that respect. But she knew where she stood with the boys. She didn’t have to prove herself, or be _pretty_ or any of that. She didn’t like wearing dresses, or makeup, or the colour pink. She liked roughing it, playing footie, getting dirty, and just being a kid for as long as possible.

The boys she was friends with never saw her as anything other than _one of the boys_.

Which is probably where she should have realised that things were different with her.

But now she’s sharing a room with four girls – all varying in degrees of prettiness, and, in Harry’s case – girliness, and Niall doesn’t know what to do.

She especially doesn’t know what to do because she… she kind of wants to kiss one of the girls. 

Just one of them.

And it’s making her head hurt when she thinks about it. Which, ironically, is all of the time.

She went from spending zero percent of her days thinking about girls to spending one hundred and fifty percent of her days thinking about girls (the maths works out, she decides, because she _dreams_ about kissing this girl, and that counts for more percentages in her mind).

“What’re you doing up?”

Niall looks up, her heart thudding in her chest at being startled.

Louis rubs at her eyes with a fist and she yawns loudly. God, even her _yawns_ are loud. Everything about Louis is loud, Niall’s noticed.

Louis sits down next to Niall on the floor, their legs brushing against each other. She yawns again, but this time, covers her mouth with her hand.

“What’re you doing up?” Louis repeats.

Niall shrugs. “Can’t sleep,” she replies. She glances down at the guitar in her hands and plucks a string. It’s a soft noise in the silence.

“Yeah, it’s a bit rowdy at times, hey?” Louis says, picking up on what Niall both is and isn’t thinking. “I have four sisters and our house doesn’t even come _close_ to being this noisy.” She smiles, and it’s obvious to Niall that Louis is thinking about her little sisters. Especially when her mouth suddenly turns downwards for a brief moment. 

If Niall hadn’t been staring, she never would’ve seen it. Louis keeps certain things close to her chest. Mostly about her family. But with everything else, she’s loud and obnoxious and in your face. She knows who she is, and she doesn’t let anyone rain on her parade. 

When they first got put into a band, Louis turned to all of them and said “right, if any of you are homophobic, you need to get over it because I’m a lesbian and I can’t be in a band with homophobes.” She stared at each and every single one of them for a good ten seconds each, and Niall was certain that even if any of them _had_ been homophobic, none of them would have dared say anything to Louis’ face. Niall admires that about her a lot. 

She thinks that Louis is kind of inspiring. Niall hasn’t ever known anyone like that in her life. 

“What’re you playing?” Louis asks, nodding at Niall’s guitar.

“Oh, nothing,” Niall replies. She puts the guitar down on the floor and immediately regrets it. Now she has nothing to do with her hands. She picks it up again and just holds it.

“I’ll have to get you to teach me that one day,” Louis says. “I only know how to play the piano a bit. But we can’t exactly drag one of those out during performance night.”

Niall nods dumbly. “Not unless we were all doing a ballad or something.”

“Yeah, but then Harry would want to lie on top of the piano in a sparkly dress, and that’s just distracting,” Louis replies, rolling her eyes just enough that Niall sees.

Niall snorts at the image. “She’s a bit of a princess, isn’t she?”

Louis grins. “She really is, mate,” she agrees. 

Niall likes the smile on Louis’ face. It makes her stomach swoop seeing it.

It also reminds her very swiftly of just _who_ Niall has been dreaming about kissing.

“How did you know you liked girls?” Niall finds herself asking.

“Easy,” Louis replies. “Have you _seen_ girls? They’re gorgeous. Boys never stood a chance.”

Niall likes that it was easy for her. She wishes it was easier for herself. 

“What about you, Nialler?” Louis asks, bumping their shoulders together. “Ever wanted to kiss a girl? I’ve been teasing Liam. She’s a right prude, she is. I swear she’s got a stick shoved so far–”

“Yes,” Niall interrupts. Louis’ gaze settles on her. It’s a little unnerving.

Louis just gives her the softest of smiles. “See? Girls are the best. It’s what I love about being a lesbian.”

Niall’s heart thuds a little harder in her chest. “It…. I… It’s recent.”

“Anyone I know?”

Even though Niall has no intention of it, she nods. “Yeah, I’d say so.”

Louis’ face lights up like a Christmas tree. “Who is it? Maybe you can hook up? Get a little side action going in this crazy house?”

Niall snorts and shakes her head. “Nah, I don’t want to complicate things.”

“How would it compli – _oh_.” Louis’ gaze rakes over Niall’s face. “You like someone in the band?”

Niall turns her gaze away. She bites down on her bottom lip and tries to breathe through her nose.

“It’s okay, you know,” Louis says, her tone impossibly soft. “Whoever she is, she’s lucky to have your affections.”

Niall isn’t sure what possesses her to do it. But she’s turning her head, and then suddenly, her lips are pressing against Louis’. But that’s all they’re doing. Because Louis definitely isn’t kissing Niall back.

“Sorry… I’m…”

“It’s okay,” Louis whispers, “I’m flattered, I really, really am. Considering we all thought you were straight. But… me and Harry…”

“_Oh_,” Niall says, her eyes widening dramatically. “I… I didn’t know.”

“It’s new,” Louis mumbles. “We… It’s just between us.”

Niall nods dumbly. Her skin feels too tight against her body, and she wants to get out of there, but Louis’ putting her hand on Niall’s shoulder, and squeezing. And it’s a lovely gesture, but Niall just _can’t_ right now.

She gets up, her guitar painfully hitting the side of her leg as she stands. She winces and bites down on her tongue to stop from making a noise that could wake up anyone else in the house.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says before Niall can say anything else. “I didn’t know it was me.” She stands up and pointedly puts herself in Niall’s line of sight. 

“It’s… Don’t… It’s fine,” Niall replies, avoiding Louis’ gaze.

But for all of her earlier perception, Louis is decidedly ignoring Niall’s signals right now, as she wraps her arms tightly around Niall in a hug. “The first girl I kissed was straight. I was proper in love with her, too.” Her breath is warm against the side of Niall’s neck. “But don’t let it discourage you. Be _you_, Niall. Be so authentically you that you never have to doubt anything like this again.”

Louis’ lips are soft on Niall’s cheek as she kisses it for a few long moments before she disappears from the room.

Niall’s cheeks burn where the tears roll down, but also where Louis’ lips were a moment later. She supresses a hiccup, and wonders, not for the first time, what she’s even doing here.

Back home things made _sense_. She knew who she was. Everything made sense.

But here? Nothing makes sense. _Nothing_ at all.

And yet, Niall can’t find it in herself to leave.

She knows she’s going to feel awkward around Louis for a while, but she’s had unrequited crushes on friends before and they’ve always fizzled out. This will be no different.

When Niall finally crawls into bed a while later, she glances around the room and takes in the four girls who are hopefully going to be her new best friends. 

It’s worth staying for that, she decides, and finally drifts off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> hi again. if you've got this far, i hope you enjoyed this fic. ♥  
please leave me a comment if you liked it. i love comments so very much a lot. ♥  
criticism, constructive or not, is not welcome.
> 
> rebloggable post on my [tumblr](https://star55.tumblr.com/post/188777350471)


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